It doesnāt matter how much evidence you gather; we canāt say that a dead person who never came out was trans. It sucks and itās a tragedy how things panned out, but if thereās one thing he didnāt like in life, it was people trying to analyze his psychology. No matter how well intentioned, itās just us applying our own worldview to things we can never get definitive answers to.
Thatās actually really gross and an erasure of trans people from history. There are a lot of cases now and throughout history of trans people unable to come out but have personal records or accounts from those close to them detailing how they felt about themselves. Saying we shouldnāt suggest anyone who was never out was trans isnāt just taking an unbiased stance, trans people are deliberately and systemically pressured from not coming out and thereās cases of trans people who were out who have their identities erased postmortem. So contributing to that feels at best like giving up ground to people who want us dead and erased.
Itās a different story if we do that firsthand accounts that more definitively indicate how that self identified, but from what I know about Kurt Cobain, he was just very eggy and queer coded. Itās entirely possible Kurt was trans, but the reason we canāt know for sure is because he never found out, not because his identity was erased.
Something that should be made very clear when talking about dead people who never found out, is that you canāt āfind outā for them. Self-discovery is something that can only happen from the self. It canāt happen when someone dies.
So if they didnāt before they died and they never told anyone, you canāt assume they did because you canāt actually know, and itās equally likely you are misgendering them.
I refuse to call a person pronouns they havenāt publicly identified with. I apply this practice to everybody whether theyāre celebrities or people I know irl; whether theyāre alive or dead. Not doing so is simply misgendering, which is disrespectful and harmful even if you are proven correct. It doesnāt matter if I buy into a theory about someoneās identity or not, I canāt decide another personās gender.
We canāt definitively say Cobain was cis, and itās really fucking sad that the person themselves can never fully answer that question. We only have the information that currently exists, and itās not enough to say for sure. For all we know, Kurt wouldāve rejected binary pronouns entirely; itās just not our place to say.
I guess we will never know. For me reading between the lines of that summary, Ted didnāt talk about it at all, so I would have no reason to assume the psychiatrist thought about conversion therapy.
It sounds like he (she?) was angry at himself and the whole situation, and everyone involved including all of societyā¦
It doesnāt matter how much evidence you gather; we canāt say that a dead person who never came out was trans. It sucks and itās a tragedy how things panned out, but if thereās one thing he didnāt like in life, it was people trying to analyze his psychology. No matter how well intentioned, itās just us applying our own worldview to things we can never get definitive answers to.
Thatās actually really gross and an erasure of trans people from history. There are a lot of cases now and throughout history of trans people unable to come out but have personal records or accounts from those close to them detailing how they felt about themselves. Saying we shouldnāt suggest anyone who was never out was trans isnāt just taking an unbiased stance, trans people are deliberately and systemically pressured from not coming out and thereās cases of trans people who were out who have their identities erased postmortem. So contributing to that feels at best like giving up ground to people who want us dead and erased.
Itās a different story if we do that firsthand accounts that more definitively indicate how that self identified, but from what I know about Kurt Cobain, he was just very eggy and queer coded. Itās entirely possible Kurt was trans, but the reason we canāt know for sure is because he never found out, not because his identity was erased.
Something that should be made very clear when talking about dead people who never found out, is that you canāt āfind outā for them. Self-discovery is something that can only happen from the self. It canāt happen when someone dies. So if they didnāt before they died and they never told anyone, you canāt assume they did because you canāt actually know, and itās equally likely you are misgendering them.
CC: @SectoidLexi@lemmy.blahaj.zone
Exactly!
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I refuse to call a person pronouns they havenāt publicly identified with. I apply this practice to everybody whether theyāre celebrities or people I know irl; whether theyāre alive or dead. Not doing so is simply misgendering, which is disrespectful and harmful even if you are proven correct. It doesnāt matter if I buy into a theory about someoneās identity or not, I canāt decide another personās gender.
We canāt definitively say Cobain was cis, and itās really fucking sad that the person themselves can never fully answer that question. We only have the information that currently exists, and itās not enough to say for sure. For all we know, Kurt wouldāve rejected binary pronouns entirely; itās just not our place to say.
I must be missing something ā what was the abuse?
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I guess we will never know. For me reading between the lines of that summary, Ted didnāt talk about it at all, so I would have no reason to assume the psychiatrist thought about conversion therapy.
It sounds like he (she?) was angry at himself and the whole situation, and everyone involved including all of societyā¦